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Desktop Publishing Is Alive And Well And Cheap On The Mac

If you’ve been a Mac user for a few years then you may remember desktop publishing. PageMaker? Quark? It’s what Macs did back in the day that PCs just could not do: Create high quality publications on a desktop computer.

These days you can spend hundreds and hundred of dollars for a desktop publishing app or spend $30 for Swift Publisher for your Mac.

From An Original Desktop Publisher

One of my modest claims to fame is that of being an original desktop publisher, circa 1985 with the first Apple LaserWriter printer (over $7,000 for 300 x 300 pixels back in the day), and version 1.0 of Aldus Pagemaker (later bought by Adobe) running on a 512k Mac.

Do the math. Desktop publishing was an expensive proposition back in those days.

What did Mac users get for all that money back then? An entry into desktop publishing, inexpensive typesetting and page layout, relatively speaking. These days, your Mac likely costs half as much and does much more.

Today you can spend hundreds of dollars for QuarkXpress or Adobe InDesign, both highly capable publishing packages. Or, you can spend $30 on the very capable, efficient, and adaptable Mac application called Swift Publisher.

Swift comes from one of our favorite Mac software developers, BeLight Software. Here’s what they think of Swift Publisher.

Do you need a sleek solution for designing and printing promotional fliers, club newsletters, social announcements, and similar documents? Then Swift Publisher, our desktop publishing app for Mac, can deliver.

What you get in the app is vastly superior to desktop publishing applications of days gone by. Swift contains over 40,000 images (with the Extras Pack, over 1,000 built-in), more than 180 professionally design templates, perfect for creating page layouts, brochures, catalogs, newsletters, booklets, and more.

More? Use 60 Core Image effects on photos and images. Choose over 100 unique masks to apply to each image.

Drop in all kinds of images and move them around the pre-set layout designs, or create your own. Swift handles images in TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PDF, and EPS. iPhoto integration is included, so just drag and drop.

I remember the day when page layout was fun. Add columns, drop in images and watch the text wrap around the image. Swift makes it even easier with built-in drawing tools, multiple page navigation, instant preview, and a floating inspector for every element on the page.

Desktop publishing in the 21st century is still about three things—design, layout, tools. Swift gives you more than the basics with column to column to another page, page thumbnails, line and character spacing, paragraph indents. There’s even a text to curve feature.

Onscreen guides let you place all objects with precision. Create master pages with re-usable elements common to all pages. Create background and foreground layers.

Swift comes with a lite version of ArtText so you can add high quality text graphics for logos, banners, headings, and anything that marries design with text. Photos can even have their own custom frames.

Unlike decades past, Swift has a spell checker. That alone is worth $45. For me, desktop publishing is about layout and text; fonts. Swift gives you control over fonts which allows you to apply styles throughout a document.

In the age of the web page, it’s nice to see that value still exists on the desktop. Brochures, flyers, newsletters, booklets, and catalogs have not gone out of style. They’re just easier to produce with Mac applications like Swift Publisher.

If you send work to a printer, and your business has a Mac (you’re reading ‘Mac360’, right?) consider looking at Swift first.

5G? Meh!

About Ron McElfresh

My first Mac was the 128k model (from 1984, so I'm old). I live and work in Honolulu, Hawaii. Read more of my articles here. Read more Mac stuff on McSolo, or a little thoughtful nonsense on McElfresh.org.